Browse Forums Building A New House Re: which builder to choose 7Apr 23, 2023 5:32 pm Architectural Homes & Duplexes - specialising in custom designing homes to your budget Get a Free Onsite Consultation Today or send a PM for information, questions or advice. Re: which builder to choose 13Apr 29, 2023 11:25 am groundzero Speaking to past clients I don't think will reflect the companies current financial situation. At the moment it's about cash flow and that has dried up for 3 reasons. First new homes in new subdivisions has dropped by 40%-50% so they havemuch less initial deposits.Of course interest rates are raising the costs of materials. Thirdly the time to do construction is taking much longer than before and builders get paid when construction stages are completed. The lack of tradies has blow out the time for each construction stage and that is pausing builders cashflow. With the new home slow down and several builders going under now this will free up tradies and speed up construction times. The budget usually has incentives for new home buyers and I think the government knows how important the building industry is so they're additional help for the construction industry. I would feel a lot much more comfortable building a new home after the budget in April. I asked to speak to people who were currently building and have been going through the worst of it. It's true though, you will have no idea of the financial situation of the builder and there's no way of knowing that as a consumer. I would say the smaller and more professional builders are likely to have higher margins and more resilient business models. Hard to know who those builders are though. As for the federal budget, I hope they are thinking much more carefully about home building stimulus than they have in the past. Homebuilder was one of the reasons we're in this mess. Re: which builder to choose 14Feb 03, 2024 7:24 pm Hi all, below is a link to a checklist I put together late last year on "Questions to ask potential Builders" before signing a contract. The checklist is based on Construction Quality Management Planning Principles, Financial Auditing Principles, Project Management Principles, and general Time/Cost/Quality questions. Its aimed at figuring out "is this the right builder for me" based on your values.You should read the checklist first and decide which questions you really want to know the answers to, and which ones are not as important - because there are a heap of questions provided in this checklist for you to ask. Personally, im a rip the band aid of fast type person so prefer to ask questions beforehand than get angry later. Anyway, here is a link to download it - you don't have to enter an email and there is nothing to pay for it, no catch. I just created this to help new homeowners who are looking to do Builder Due Diligence before signing a contract. I used to work in a large building company and have built a few houses and I agree with you 100% that builders are poor communicators The checklist is hosted in Docsend which is Dropbox company. https://docsend.com/view/32wzixeyqk9fcrxc DOWNLOAD LINK I hope this helps. May the force be with you all Re: which builder to choose 15Feb 04, 2024 5:16 am obiwon Hi all, below is a link to a checklist I put together late last year on "Questions to ask potential Builders" before signing a contract. The checklist is based on Construction Quality Management Planning Principles, Financial Auditing Principles, Project Management Principles, and general Time/Cost/Quality questions. Its aimed at figuring out "is this the right builder for me" based on your values.You should read the checklist first and decide which questions you really want to know the answers to, and which ones are not as important - because there are a heap of questions provided in this checklist for you to ask. Personally, im a rip the band aid of fast type person so prefer to ask questions beforehand than get angry later. Anyway, here is a link to download it - you don't have to enter an email and there is nothing to pay for it, no catch. I just created this to help new homeowners who are looking to do Builder Due Diligence before signing a contract. I used to work in a large building company and have built a few houses and I agree with you 100% that builders are poor communicators The checklist is hosted in Docsend which is Dropbox company. https://docsend.com/view/32wzixeyqk9fcrxc DOWNLOAD LINK I hope this helps. May the force be with you all Anthony Firstly, wow you have put a lot of work into your list of questions! Great job and they are mostly valid questions that a builder should be able to answer. As a small builder and owner of the company I would be more than happy for a new client to quiz me with this list. However, most homebuilding clients are going to choose to build with a project home company, and they really only get to deal with the sales person, who in most cases would have no clue as to how to answer the vast majority of the questions on your list. I am not being critical, just trying to spark a conversation. I have spent my entire career since 1994 in the construction and property development sectors, I have worked for private commercial builders, I have worked for and hired project home companies and I now own and run my own small custom home business ( we have capacity to do 10 builds a year currently have 7 active on the books). I have vetted commercial builders with questions and check lists like in your list, I have worked with project home companies to improve their customer service and I have seen how major project home builders operate from the inside. But despite putting a hell of a lot of thought into it, I can't figure out a fool proof way for normal people to accurately vet their new builder. The project home sector has been cleverly designed through a lot of trial and error to insulate management from their customers. The whole industry is smoke and mirrors and relies on potential customers being wowed by sparkly things at their nearest display village. The vast majority of people pick their builder based on whether or not they like the floor plan and interior design, not the financial capacity, or the qualifications of the trades and management. And if you were to ask the sales person those questions they would have no clue in most cases. There are some really smart people in this forum with excellent experience, so what would be good is if we can put our collective heads together and come up with a short practical list for how to pick a project home builder and maybe Anthony can help put it together for all the newby people in this forum. Okay I will go first with my base theory: The display home needs to be perfect - This is meant to be their best work on display When you are inspecting a project home builder's display home, try to look past the interior design and have a close look at the finishes. Have they caulked the skirtings and around the kitchen nicely, what is the paint finish like on the doors and architraves, are the tiles laid neatly ( are the grout lines straight, is there any lipping etc). My theory is that is they can't get their display home perfect there is no way they will get your home perfect. I have been to so many display homes in my time and from experience I know who most of the average builders are, and honestly this theory holds true. What I haven't been able to figure out, is how does the average Joe get an understanding as to the financial capacity of their chosen builder, or the qualifications of their allocated supervisor etc Anyway, that's enough for now Cheers Simeon Architectural Homes & Duplexes - specialising in custom designing homes to your budget Get a Free Onsite Consultation Today or send a PM for information, questions or advice. Hi Mofflepop, I would recommend finding a building designer to prepare plans, they should design to your specified budget. The benefit is you can tender the project out… 9 22059 Thank you. Do I use timber floorboards for stairs or do people use timber treads? Or is both the same? 6 8181 |